#124. Writing (Saturday, September 12, 2009)

What was your best day…of reading something that inspired you?

So you’ve just stumbled upon this site randomly and know nothing about me at all. What would you have to go on, to start this journey? Two things, I suppose:

1. That I’m a little weird; for having a site recounting the best one hundred days of my life, to hundreds and thousands of people who I don’t know and will likely never meet.
2. That I like writing.

We have all one hundred and twenty-four entries (including this one) to dig deeper into that first point. So let’s start with the second point for now, and see where that takes us.

Quick backstory. For most of my early childhood, I hated writing. Numbers were simple and direct, words were just…messy and unstructured. But then in seventh grade, I decided one day – for an unknown reason – that I was going to write a novel. It featured all of my classmates (under pseudonyms) doing some highly unrealistic and morally-questionable things, and didn’t have much of a plot to speak of. It was…bad. But I finished it, and showed everyone. They loved it.

Fast-forward six years later to 2009. A few years earlier, I had come up with this unique concept for a young adult science fiction novel; it was just missing the “science” part. Then, a week or so before the end of summer break, I was reading this math book when I came across a quantum physics theory that I’d never heard of before. And it seemed like the perfect fit.

Within a few days, the rough plot came together in my head. I went through a book that discussed the mechanics of novel-writing. I started writing the first chapter, then moved into my dorm (six hours away from home) to start my second year of university, then continued writing it, then realized that I had better things to do now that I was free from my parents, then put it down – without any real expectation that I’d get back to it.

Two weeks later, on this particular Saturday, I make a trip to the bookstore. It’s become my hobby to just go to bookstores, find a book I like, and be a cheap-ass by spending the entire day in there reading it. And on this day, I’m drawn to this book that’s featured in the young adult section, with an interesting premise about a girl killing herself and leaving tapes, by this first-time author called Jay Asher. It’s Thirteen Reasons Why.

So I read. And read. And read. That entire six hours I’m sitting there, as the bright afternoon sky outside turns to night, it feels like I’ve been transported to this alternate universe where nothing else exists but me and the story.

And as I finish the book, it hits me. That’s exactly what I want to do. Create a story, about teenagers, built on an innovative premise, and striking the perfect emotional chords – so that readers everywhere can experience the same thing that I just did.

That night, I get back to my novel. I change one big part of it that just wasn’t working, and it’s full steam ahead from there. The next several months is just a blissful engagement with the words, the memorable characters, the high-concept plot that I’ve weaved together.

I love writing.

(NB: After one year, I finish the draft. Then foolishly pay $1,600 for a “book doctor” – essentially a scam – who doesn’t provide any real help but instead tells me I’m going to be famous. Then I start querying agents, to a barrage of form letter rejections. Then to the second draft, and the third, and so on it goes…)